What Trump Wants in His Next Attorney General

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Hey everyone, Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday. Two quick things before we start. First of all, there is a story that flew by pretty quickly that a lot of people may have missed. I would have missed it, except for the fact that

When I hosted on radio, I had Sarah Fitzpatrick, the reporter on this story for The Atlantic, on as a guest. And we actually didn't even get to talk about it because I think it was the day after Pam Bondi was fired. Uh however We were going to talk about, and I want to talk about now this remarkable reporting that she did about how the Justice Department and the Trump administration are eyeing up Cuba.

as the next Venezuela, essentially. You all remember back in January, we, the US government, uh seized Nicolas Maduro, brought him to the United States where he's facing federal indictment. He's now in federal prison. Well, here's a piece. of Sarah's reporting from the Atlantic. Quote

The U.S. Attorney's Office in South Florida is preparing indictments against Cuba's political and military leadership, including members of the Castro family, on a range of possible charges related to alleged violent crime, drug trafficking, immigration, and espionage. Four people familiar with the planning told us on condition of anonymity. So that's four sources. And this isn't just speculation. Four different people are telling Sarah Fitzpatrick and her partners at the Atlantic that.

There are indictments being prepared for the leadership of Cuba. So get ready for that. When will it happen? I don't know. I would imagine after we finally uh reduce the hostilities or get out of Iran, it's gonna take military might to do this. But keep an eye on that. Second of all, In brighter news, later today, Friday, the Artemis 2 will make touchdown again on Earth. I don't know if that's the right terminology. It's probably not, but the ship's coming back to Earth.

Um it'll be a great moment. It's supposed to be at at eight oh seven PM Eastern time, Friday night. It's great and inspiring and awesome for all the obvious reasons, all the things you've heard. We do need something that we can all get together and pull for and be behind. The images have been. unbelievable. The images have been beautiful, have been just awe inspiring. And it's great to see this group of incredibly highly trained

and expert astronauts achieving this massive goal. There's two more Artemis missions, by the way. I learned this because I had another guest on radio that day named Bill Harwood, a great reporter uh for CBS News. Here's the favorite fact that he told me.

Of course, at the end of the interview after we talked about all the real stuff, I had to ask them about the food. What do these astronauts eat? Is it still like in the old days when I was a kid? When you remember they would you would go to a certain museum, there was a science museum in Philly, the Franklin Institute, and they would sell this like

freeze dried crumbled ice cream and it was called astronaut food. Or like, do they have real food? So of course I looked it up and and checked out the menu, which is really impressive. And I said To Bill, I said, What's with all the tortilla? Like a lot of tortilla dishes here. And he said, There's a reason for that. Do you know what it is? And I thought, I didn't. So think about it. Why would they have tortillas? He'd said, because bread is

makes crumbs and you can't have crumbs in zero G. You can't have crumbs floating around. They're gonna get in the wiring and the computers and the machinery and everything else. Tortillas, No crumbs. So I love that fact. Uh if it ever comes up in conversation, you can impress the heck out of whoever you're talking to. I was impressed by learning that from Bill Harwood. Okay. On to this week's piece. As always, love to hear your thoughts, questions, comments. Send them into letters atcafe.com.

Donald Trump's next Attorney General must meet two job requirements. One is easy and in plentiful supply, the other is impossible. Anyone who takes this job is doomed to fail. The first job requirement, the abundant one, is unyielding fealty to Trump and his political agenda, of course. Our recently dispatched Attorney General Pam Bondi had this part aced. quote, the greatest president in US history, she gushed during her self debasing House testimony in February.

Days later, she draped over the DOJ headquarters building a stories-high banner bearing the president's visage atop the Justice Department's official seal. A Schmalzi Hosanna from the Totiish AG, and a desecration of DOJ's long standing tradition of independence. Beyond the kowtowing, Bondy tried her darndest to make Trump's prosecutorial revenge fantasies come true.

She aimed the Justice Department's prosecutorial firepower at a succession of prime targets on the president's enemies list. Letitia James, James Comey, Senators Mark Kelly, and Alyssa Slotkin, Jerome Powell. Bondi's prosecutors failed at every turn, their transparently vindictive cases rejected by judges and grand juries alike. The John Bolton indictment is different, by the way, as the investigation reportedly predated the current Trump administration, and the charges appear sound.

Other Trump payback investigations remain pending, but their outlooks are no brighter. It's unclear whether Bondi actually ever cared about all the losing, but plainly her first priority was the performative display of prosecutorial loyalty. Hey boss, I tried. We've come to take it as a given that Trump demands absolute political allegiance from all his appointees, but all of this is historically aberrant for the Justice Department.

No modern attorney general has been entirely above the occasional appearance or accusation of partisanship, of course. Eric Holder called himself, quote, the president's wingman. Bill Barr twisted facts and law to clear Trump on the Mueller investigation. Merrick Garland waited until after Trump had declared his 2024 candidacy to launch Jack Smith, a quote, heat-seeking missile, as described by Democratic power lawyer Abby Lowell, with an established record of prosecutorial overreach.

at the past and future president. But nobody has done any president's bidding nearly as aggressively as Bondi did or tried to do for Donald Trump. At least prior AGs typically landed in some gray area and disputed accusations that they acted on political motivations. Bondy flaunted hers in a sweaty effort to impress the commander in chief.

Then we come to the second job requirement for Trump's next attorney general, the impossible one, actually winning. Trump fired Bondi not for any lack of enthusiasm for retributive prosecutions, but for her failure to win them. But the next AG won't fare any better. The unavoidable reality for Trump and his next AG is that no prosecutor, no matter how great, can make a case where there is none to be made. You can combine Pat Fitzgerald with Archibald Cox.

with Elliot Ness, with Robert Muller, with Thomas Dewey, with the real life incarnation of Jack McCoy, and still fail if there's no validly prosecutable crime to begin with. How exactly is the next Attorney General going to fulfill Trump's fantasy for a successful prosecution of Barack Obama for quote treason? How will our hypothetical successor AG indict and convict Jerome Powell when one of Bondi's prosecutors already acknowledged in court that DOJ has zero evidence of criminality?

For what crime might the next AG indict former cyber expert Chris Krebs and former Homeland Security Advisor Miles Taylor? The high crime of pissing off Trump? Who's gonna bring a successful prosecution against Joe Biden for felonious use of an autopen? Who will indict and convict Letitia James after one judge and two grand juries already have thrown out the cases against her? Why would any grand juror indict or trial juror convict?

The US senators who made a 90-second internet video reminding service members that they can defy illegal orders after a grand jury rejected those charges against Kelly, Slotkin, and other Democratic officials. No doubt a shady prosecutor might hoodwink a grand jury, with no judge or defense lawyer present, to find just enough evidence to support a probable cause indictment.

But after the unilateral portion of the proceedings conclude, the going gets tougher. Indeed, judges and juries across the country are on to DOJ's shenanigans and have shown that they will swiftly reject Trump's bad faith prosecution.

There will be no shortage of aspirants to replace Bondi, who share her capacity for cringy public displays of fealty to the president, and her eagerness to take action on even his most outrageous retributive requests. So let's run down some top candidates. Janine Pierrot, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, DC, is always eager to fire way on Trump's behalf. And she already has helmed the failed efforts to take down Kelly, Slotkin, and Jerome Powell.

After a judge blocked her subpoenas in the Powell investigation, Pyrrhow called a scream therapy press conference to yelp Trump's favorite catchphrases, activist judge, we have cleaned up this city, and stake her claim for a higher job at DOJ. Pierrot promises to be another Bondy in angrier packaging. Trump has called his EPA administrator and 2020 election denier Lee Zeldon, reportedly in the running for the AG position, his quote, secret weapon.

It's unclear why the relatively milktoast Zeldin, who has zero prosecutorial record or any meaningful high-level legal experience, Would succeed where others have failed. The attorney general job, were he to get it, would be his first ever as a prosecutor. Count me skeptical that a complete novice would find some magical way to convict high profile political targets based on sketchy, at best, evidence.

And then there's Todd Blanche, Bondi's former deputy and the current acting attorney general, who is gunning for the permanent job. In a press conference this week, Blanche made the wild assertion that Trump has not only the right, but quote, the duty. to influence targeted prosecutions of quote men, women, and entities the president in the past has had issues with, end quote. Sweet enticement to a president hellbent on personal revenge. Blanche also has the sycophancy requirement eight.

He proclaimed that if Trump chooses not to make him the permanent AG, he'll respond simply but sweetly, quote, thank you very much. I love you, sir. End quote. That's really what Todd Blanche said he would say to Donald Trump. Blanche has been a prosecutor and a criminal defense lawyer for two decades.

He started at the Southern District of New York in 2006. We overlapped and we were colleagues and friends there. And as you all know, I've publicly defended Todd Blanche when he was under fire for representing Donald Trump in the criminal cases. I've since been quite critical of him in his conduct as deputy A.G. On the one hand, Blanche has a strong prosecutorial pedigree. He was an outstanding violent crimes prosecutor in New York.

But Blanche made his name at the SDNY by bringing valid criminal cases, supported by actual evidence against real criminals, not the baseless political nonsense that defined his tenure as deputy AG. All of Bondy's failures on the Epstein files and the political vendetta cases are Blanche's two. He's not quite as embarrassing or self-destructive as Bondy in front of the cameras. But don't expect anything different or better if Blanche gets the permanent nod as Attorney General.

Plenty of Trump's loyalists will pursue the AG job over the upcoming weeks, but ultimately the next attorney general will find no more success than Bondi did in pursuing the president's doomed prosecutorial vengeance mandate. It's not that the candidate themselves are lacking, though it's an underwhelming lot. It's that the job itself simply can't be done as Trump wishes it could. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.

Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at Odo.com. That's Odoo.com.